On 1/6/2012 12:15 PM, Matthew Martyniuk wrote:
It's not the people who refuse to consistently use the term "bird" for one clade or another that create the problem, it's people who refuse to use definite terms avian, avialan, etc. in scientific papers so everybody knows what they are talking about, instead preferring vernacular common names like birds, which could mean anything.
Yes. A great deal of annoyance could be avoided if scientists would just Stop Trying To Co-opt Vernacular Terminology -- as you say, it was to eliminate confusion, differentiate scientific discourse from everyday conversation, and (most important of all) to avoid irritating us common folk w/ our torches and pitchforks, that vernacular terminology was excluded anyways.
And the sooner the better...